Yesterday I received a letter from HMRC stating that an overpayment of tax credit was made.

I must taken action to repay this now or HMRC will proceed to take legal action to recover the debt.

Â£2556.28

wtf

Assuming HMRC are correct, I called them and stated that my sole source of income is my army pension, which is Â£200 less than the amount they claim as overpayment. The young lady suggested I call back tomorrow with my list of income/outgoings so that we can work out a repayment plan.

Assuming HMRC are not correct, in that my claim for tax credit was genuinely made in good faith (as B_lair did), surely the tax credit I received was justifiably awarded?

I live in Belize, it costs a fortune to call them, when they write they underpay the postage so their letters take 5 weeks to arrive.

Anyone else been in this situation?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated, pm me if you like, thanks in advance.

ps -I'd really like to be able to take legal action on the grounds of extortion but there's no way I have the finance for that.

There is no guarantee that any of their calculations are correct or even worth answering! Tell them by mail to do their sums again and dont phone them!
I'm curious as to how if you are in Belize how you are entitled, but if you are well done and good drills and then if they can touch you? If they cant tell them to swing for it!
Send them an invoice for the postage and a letter stating that if its not paid the matter will be handed to a collection agency. Come up with a figure a pond and a penny over what they want back, sits back and lights blue touch paper!

There is no guarantee that any of their calculations are correct or even worth answering! Tell them by mail to do their sums again and dont phone them!
I'm curious as to how if you are in Belize how you are entitled, but if you are well done and good drills and then if they can touch you? If they cant tell them to swing for it!
Send them an invoice for the postage and a letter stating that if its not paid the matter will be handed to a collection agency. Come up with a figure a pond and a penny over what they want back, sits back and lights blue touch paper!

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We were in UK getting the kids through school/college at the time, as I say it was genuinely claimed but now they make me look like it was criminal.

I would love to be able to tell them go take a walk lol but as you know, army pensions are paid by the tax office and (I would assume) they would recover it from my pension by with-holding it at source.

I like your strategy anyway, but this really is a feckin nightmare; quite happy ticking over on the pension one day and threatened with total impoverishment the next. It's no joke mate.

They normally deduct the amount overpaid off future payments - not sure how this will affect you as you no longer live here. It seems like quite a high figure as it can only be based on the previous year (not keeping quiet about a lottery win I take it). I agree about putting it in writing and demanding a full breakdown of how the figure was obtained.

I agree about putting it in writing and demanding a full breakdown of how the figure was obtained.

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Also, if you still have it, send copies of any calculations they sent you in the past justifying what they paid you. If you don't have it, insist that they look at previous records and ask them to cross check against this latest demand. Quite often they just look at your current status, rather than thinking it might have changed over time.

Hi Swamp Rat
I now how you feel, last week I got a letter from my local council saying I was being investigated for falsifying a housing & council tax benefit claim, I had a interview undercaution, the head investigation officer told me I had claimed housing benefit last year when i was discharge out of the Army. I told him that the council had fcuk me off for the claim as i was getting a pension & a war pension. and he was full of shit. Today I got a letter from the council saying" Thank you for attending the interview at the council offices, I have been able to confirm your assertion that housing & council tax benefit were not in payment to you last year. I believe that it would not be in the public interest to continue investigating this mater, therefore I have closed the case down.
Thank you for your assistance in resolving this query

So if I was not getting the benefit from last year, why was I interview undercaution. As he said in his first letter the council had done a full investigation, & i was recieving housing & council tax last year.

Swamp - yes I have been in that situation, not quite as much owed, but first of all how did it come to be such a large amount - surely they should of found any mistakes of overpayment sooner?!

But apparently this happens quite alot, they like to give people enough money to live off, and then as soon as your used to being able to pay your bills with still having enough left over to get a takeaway they send you letters telling you you owe this much.

I gave tax credits all the right information but some stupid bint on the ohone seemed to mess it all up when I changed a detail over the phone. If I had the patience I would of fought them for it, but after about 14 letters back and forth about this I just thought fcuk it.

Hi - I had exactly the same problem last year whilst I was serving overseas. The other half phoned up and arranged with them a repayment plan over 12 months and at no point did they explain how we'd ended up in this mess.
When I finally got to a phone and spoke to someone I told them I wanted a full bill and explanation of this sum and it turned out that I only owed them it because I hadn't claimed tax credits for that current year. All tax credits are apparently paid a year in advance so if you don't claim every year then you end up owing them the full amount of payments from the previous year. I asked the woman if I could claim for this year then & there over the phone - she said yes, I gave her mine & hubbies P60 (or is it P45 - can never remember) details over the phone and that was it. The debt dssappeared.
What annoyed me most about this was they never told us that all we'd have to do is reclaim - they were just quite happy to take the money.
It would be worth seeing if this is what has occured in your instance.

Hi - I had exactly the same problem last year whilst I was serving overseas. The other half phoned up and arranged with them a repayment plan over 12 months and at no point did they explain how we'd ended up in this mess.
When I finally got to a phone and spoke to someone I told them I wanted a full bill and explanation of this sum and it turned out that I only owed them it because I hadn't claimed tax credits for that current year. All tax credits are apparently paid a year in advance so if you don't claim every year then you end up owing them the full amount of payments from the previous year. I asked the woman if I could claim for this year then & there over the phone - she said yes, I gave her mine & hubbies P60 (or is it P45 - can never remember) details over the phone and that was it. The debt dssappeared.
What annoyed me most about this was they never told us that all we'd have to do is reclaim - they were just quite happy to take the money.
It would be worth seeing if this is what has occured in your instance.

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i new they worked it out from how much you earnt the previous year but would be great if they would actaully tell you this without it being in the bloody small print.

As for tax credits I only realsied i was entitled to working tax credits after i had a baby, theres years worth of missed claims.

Yesterday I received a letter from HMRC stating that an overpayment of tax credit was made.

I must taken action to repay this now or HMRC will proceed to take legal action to recover the debt.

Â£2556.28

wtf

Assuming HMRC are correct, I called them and stated that my sole source of income is my army pension, which is Â£200 less than the amount they claim as overpayment. The young lady suggested I call back tomorrow with my list of income/outgoings so that we can work out a repayment plan.

Assuming HMRC are not correct, in that my claim for tax credit was genuinely made in good faith (as B_lair did), surely the tax credit I received was justifiably awarded?

I live in Belize, it costs a fortune to call them, when they write they underpay the postage so their letters take 5 weeks to arrive.

Anyone else been in this situation?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated, pm me if you like, thanks in advance.

ps -I'd really like to be able to take legal action on the grounds of extortion but there's no way I have the finance for that.

I'm stumped.

Im in exactly the same position (not belize0 loads of people at work are write a letter quoting sect 70 social security admin regs. i am not paying and every time the recovery company phones up , approx every 4 weeks i just say im in dispute as the HMRC will not produce any evidence, (facts figures etc) they just say i owe so pay they can spin